1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for recycling an electrically conductive substrate for an organic photosensitive member, more particularly to a method for recycling an electrically conductive substrate for an organic photosensitive member, characterized by swelling a photosensitive layer which contains a binder resin on the substrate, and separating the swelled photosensitive layer from the substrate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A photosensitive member for electrophotography applied to electrophotographic machines, such as copying machines and printers, is conventionally an organic photosensitive member in which a resin-containing photosensitive layer is formed on an electrically conductive substrate. However, when such an organic photosensitive member is used for a long time, there arises a problem of wear and deterioration of the photosensitive layer, so that adverse effect to image property can't be avoided. Therefore, photosensitive members out of use or defective photosensitive members produced in manufacturing process, their products have been discarded including the substrate in the past, but from view points of worldwide resources-conservation and environmental protection a method for recycling the substrate has been studied.
In order to recycle a substrate for photosensitive member, a removing a photosensitive layer from the substrate is needed. As the method for removing the photosensitive layer from the substrate, for example, a method for removing the layer from the substrate by dissolving the layer in organic solvent (Japanese Patent Laid Open No. Hei 5-341537) and a method for removing the layer from the substrate by rubbing a surface of the photosensitive member with a brush while a solvent is sprayed on the surface (Japanese Patent Laid Open Nos. Sho 61-209453 and Hei 5-257296) are proposed. However all these techniques contains a step of dissolving the photosensitive layer in a solvent, so that the resin dissolved in the solvent adheres to the substrate again resulting in making it difficult to use the solvent repeatedly and lower the cost for recycling the substrate. Further, maybe a treatment of the solvent, in which the photosensitive layer is dissolved, will cause a new environmental problem. Furthermore, when the solvent to be used is highly flammable, there also arises a problem of safety.